Posts Tagged SEO

After the recent spate of events there is a widespread talk about Negative SEO. The premise is if Google is penalizing websites for unnatural links like it did in the recent Penguin update then it means that anyone can create a link profile consisting of large number of unnatural links for his competitor in hope of Google noticing and then penalizing it. Sounds simple? Well, if Google is punishing sites for having unnatural or paid links then yes, it’s that SIMPLE!

The easier solution to counter negative SEO could have been Googlenot taking in to consideration unnatural or paid links (if Google thinks so) in its ranking algorithm. Sites indulging in black hat SEO or link buying would have simply got no advantage of creating unnatural link profile and Negative SEO practitioners would not be able to harm any site. But Google is obviously not going down that road.

But why? No one really knows the answer. But one is for sure. Google wants webmasters to do its job. Highly inefficient if you ask me. Google has billions of dollars of hardware and human resources which can be harnessed in much better ways to provide much better results.

Some SEO experts are already playing to Google’s hands. Instead of calling out to Google for its decisions, they are suggesting ways which will make website owners’ job even more difficult.

This article suggests that website owners and webmaster be more proactive and list out bad links to their sites in a XML file.

Well, it may sound fine but misses out on one thing. Not everyone has expensive software to extract out all the links. There maybe some free tools but they may not give the complete list. So how do we find out all the bad links to our sites?

Why don’t these SEO experts realize that it’s Google’s job to fix their algorithm. If they are fine enough with sending us cryptic standard mails then why the onus is on webmasters to do all the dirty work for Google.

Can’t Google with so much power at its disposal simple make out which sites are truly indulging in shady link building? Google is after all developing driverless cars. If they can create super complex algorithms for their cars then surely they can create better search algorithms.

Almost every online business nowadays has a SEO campaign with various rates of success. The success of any SEO campaign is largely determined by the targeted traffic it is able to deliver to the website. Traffic is increased by researching for the most relevant and popular keywords. Once the keywords have been selected, a website is optimized and a link building campaign is initiated. Hopefully, if dome correctly and consistently, all these activities result in a website rankings for all or many of its selected keywords.

But over the last few years, SEO has evolved. It is no longer about delivering traffic to a website but also encompasses analytics.

Usually, a SEO company will do the needful and deliver the traffic. If and when a search engine updates its algorithm, the campaign is tweaked accordingly. This becomes a never ending cycle where the bulk of efforts are spent on chasing algorithms. Rather than building a website according to your initial goals, the focus of an algorithm chasing SEO consultant is now what a site should be as dictated by the latest algorithm update.

With every algorithm, SEO consultant will be frantically making changes to the site’s SEO campaign but by the time SEO consultant is done with them next update m ay be around the corner.

Also, algorithm chasing means overwhelming attention on just one search engine at the cost of other search engines. This means putting all your eggs in one basket which is not a wise decision when you business depends overwhelmingly on your online presence.

Chasing algorithm means creating a one size fits all solution which takes in to account various signals which can affect the SEO of a site. But as we know such solutions don’t work across industries and niche. Such an approach can be a perfect recipe for disaster if followed to a T.

Chasing analytics is a better technique than chasing algorithms because it forces you to concentrate on much better and tangible statistics which make more sense.

Analytics involves focusing on your audience and serving them with best way possible. This is how search engines actually want the sites to perform in the first place. This also saves SEO consultant from always figuring how to game search engines or how to get off the penalty imposed during last update.

But analytics is only successful if you have considerable traffic. Without any traffic even the best designed and most UX friendly site may fail.

To get the best of any SEO campaign, a SEO consult should marry analytics with their SEO campaigns if possible. A traffic may not necessarily be converted in to sales and it’s here the power of analytics can be unleashed. Analytics can unearth user behavior and trend which can help a site convert visitors in to customers.

This will mean a much more successful website which doesn’t need to be tweaked with every algorithm update.

Backlinks is the spine of any SEO campaign. No other aspect of SEO is as much mired in mystery as link building. Today, we will answer some questions regarding back links and link building.

1) Is there any 1 best link building method: The answer to that will vary depending on who is answering the question. For many article submissions have worked wonders, for others blog comments and still others may prefer link buying.

The best way to go about acquiring backlinks is to have a mix of various sources. If all of your backlinks are of same type then your site may suffer in case these kinds of links are downgraded in some future search engine algorithm update. Your basket of links should have links from all possible sources such as articles directories, web directories, social networking sites, blogs, and social bookmarking sites etc.

2) Do we need to acquire only high PR backlinks: High PR backlinks are preferable as they give maximum benefit. But, you should mix up your backlinks in this case also. Make sure that backlinks come from sites with same or similar themes and should not totally unrelated.

3) Do nofollow backlinks pass any juice? Though Google and other major search engines do not pass on any PR juice, nofollow links from quality websites may translate in to higher traffic and visibility.

4) How many links should I have to get first page spot: There is not defined number of links needed to get a position in first page of search results. Your position depends on other websites as much as it depends on your efforts.

5) Can I have good rankings without any backlinks? Yes, maybe 5 years back for some very low competition keywords. But no longer the case now with so many businesses with online presence.

A SEO company India needs to plan a SEO campaign which has a judicious mix of traditional as well as out of the box link building techniques for maximum results for your efforts.

Since its inception, SEO has always been mired in controversies, lies and obfuscation by many parties with vested interests. So any news related to SEO coming form the horse’s mouth (Google/Bing) shed light on many aspects of SEO and makes life easier and less confusing for webmaster and SEO consultants alike. Bing also posted 18 things you need to know about SEO for our benefit. Here is the list

1) Crawlability: Make sure your site is accessible to search engines or else your site won’t be ranked. As simple as that! A no brainer but still many webmasters flunk on this first point. Use XML sitemaps and search friendly URL structure.

2) Site Structure: Your site should be functional with both inbound links and outbound links from and to quality sites with good content.

3) Content Hierarchy: Create content which users are searching for. Keyword research can help you find that out. Avoid putting content and links inside rich media applications like Flash & Silverlight or images since search engines can’t read the content embedded in them.

4) On-Page Factors: Effective use of Title, meta description tags. Include keywords in them. Apart from this, rather than wasting too much time on various minor points, try creating great content.

5) Content Production: Create great content which satisfy users search. Thin content approach won’t benefit you and get you in to trouble.

6) Link building: Use keywords as anchor text to increase the relevancy of the link. Use social networking icons to increase sharing. Stay away from paid link services.

Many webmasters complain that no action is been taken against websites that blatantly use paid link to boost their SERPs and page rank. It is common knowledge that a whole link selling/buying industry is flourishing.

Links from blogs and websites are sold and bought in large numbers. In a high profile incident, J.C. Penney was found to be indulging in buying of links on a massive scale to boost its search rankings on Google. Once the news came out in open, Google did penalize it briefly. After few months, J.C. Penney’s search rankings were restored to great extent.

Webmasters and SEO consultants have been wondering if buying links is a good strategy considering absence of any concrete action from Google. Though, webmasters have received notices regarding unnatural links, it is not that widespread as of now. These notices have surely not made much impact on link buyers and sellers.

Will we be seeing any further activity on this front? Will Google be able to curb this menace and that too without inflicting any collateral damage like we saw with Panda update?

Industry analysts have estimated that online ad spending will reach an astounding figure of $50 billion by 2015. This will be almost the double of online ad spending in 2010 which $26 billion.

This is largely due to increase in banner ad marketing. These figures highlight the fact that internet marketing is growing at a frantic rate as well as increased usage of internet all over the world.

For any business making its presence felt on internet has now become a very crucial step. It has reached such proportions in some advanced economies that companies without any web presence are in danger of becoming irrelevant soon.

Online shopping is surging, more people are on internet thanks to Smartphones & tablets, Facebook and social media sites have made people addicted to internet. With such huge usage of internet, companies have figured out that reaching their customers where they spend most of their time make more sense. And hence, huge increase in online ad spending is being predicted.

Apart from online ad spending another type of marketing is also being adopted by most companies. Search engine marketing or SEO aims at promoting a site on search engine such as Google & Bing. Almost everyone must have used search engines to find some services or products. Most likely, you must have clicked at top listings of the search results. SEO company use various tactics to rank websites higher up in search listings.

In the last few years, Social Media Marketing (SMO) has also emerged very strongly due to increased popularity of sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. While exact figures for SEO and Social Media marketing are hard to get, it can be safely assumed that they match Online Ad spending and will only go north in next few years.

It is very vital that any organization keeps a part of their marketing budget for online whether it’s banner, PPC, SEO or SMO. Because if you don’t now then you may soon perish!

NOTW is quite famous and has a long history. It is one of the most celebrated tabloids in Britain but this one mistake from their over-eager reporters has tarnished their credibility for ever.

While, NOTW and its owners deserve every bit of condemnation and punishment, what we can’t loose sight of is public’s own insatiable appetite for sleazy news and sensationalism.

News and media outlets are filled to gills with inane news and tidbits of celebrities of every shape, size and character. Murderers, sex maniacs, philandering spouses, corrupt tycoons, are our new heroes.

Daily new celebrities are destroyed and newer ones created. There is a mad race to get the most weird and inconsequential news. Public is getting hungrier and media is feeding everything it can lay its hands on.

NOTW also succumbed to this pressure and went further. It treaded in to a zone which was not only legally untenable but also morally reprehensible.

Similarly, SEO industry is also many times accused of indulging in tactics which are deemed unacceptable in an Internet where rules are made by one entity called Google. SEO companies are always under pressure to deliver extraordinary results (which many times they themselves promise) with even more extraordinary deadlines. As a result, what we see is link selling and buying and other sleazy tactics on a huge scale to influence Google search results.

All this and much worse activities, often called black hat tactics, are carried out rampantly many times without the client’s knowledge. Clients just like NOTW’s readers smug and happy never bother to ever think on what methodologies were used.

Have you also hired a SEO company for your SEO campaign? Have you ever tried to know how they are going to achieve top rankings for you? If not, ask today because in case your SEO company is violating Google’s webmaster guidelines then it won’t be the SEO company that is going to be punished but your own WEBSITE!

Delhi Belly is full of expletives, potty jokes and a whacky plot with few fine performances.

There is no ‘Delhi’ in Delhi Belly except for a fried chicken from a roadside vendor which inflicts one of the lead characters with the world famous Delhi Belly.

The producer Aamir Khan said, the film is an Adult comedy. If profanities make a film adult then I guess it is one.

But apart from abusive language, there is nothing much adult about it. And, certainly not much Delhi. The storyline though bit novel (by Bollywood’s standard) is not something that we have not seen in last few years.

So what is the reason behind the success of Delhi Belly? What can we learn and apply from to marketing especially internet marketing.

1) Pedigree: Delhi Belly’s is backed by Aamir Khan, who is probably the biggest star in Bollywood right now. Anything form his production house automatically garners eye balls and whips frenzied media hype.

From internet marketing’s perspective, what you can learn is that, if you have a name in your industry, cash on it. If you have been successful with your earlier products and ventures then while launching a product, remind your audience/niche about your previous success.

If you are newbie then you can contact internet marketing gurus and get them to back or endorse your product.

2) Publicity Blitz: Delhi Belly was releasing on the same date as ‘Buddha Hoga Tera Baap’. Aamir Khan is a master at managing media. In his last few films he has courted media like never before. For this film also, he ensured that the film got as much attention from media as possible. He certainly succeeded.

If you are also launching your site or product, then your only chance is all out promotion. Whatever industry you are in, chances are that it is already overcrowded with thousands of similar websites. If you are thinking about succeeding on the strength of your product or services then you can be in for a long haul. While promoting your website, explore & exploit every avenue. Blogs, article directories, web directories, press releases, book marking. Offer guest posts on other blogs related to your industry. Be proactive and regular about it. Article directories are a great way to get traffic and also search rankings. You can hire a SEO company to do your promotion or do it yourself if you have time and expertise. These tactics are low cost and highly effective. Get the word out about your website/product.

3) Controversial: ‘Delhi Belly’ courted many controversies. From the lyrics of a song to jokes on a popular car brand to expletives – everything in this film was intended to raise eyebrows. And it served producer’s purpose also.

Similarly, if you want to get instant publicity for a not-so- stellar website/product/services then be controversial. Take potshots at rivals, call names to industry leaders, align yourself with a camp and be open about it. Anything to stir the pot and get attention. Be careful with this approach because it can backfire magnificently.

4) Exclusivity: ‘Delhi Belly’ asked for an adult rating certificate from the Indian censor board and got it. The producers publicized the fact that this movie had adult content and hence was unsuitable for viewing with family. This tactic made people more curious about it. Since people under 18 were not allowed to watch this movie, this raised inquisitiveness even more. This contributed to more people coming to theatres just to see what the heck is there in this film.

When people are prohibited/forbidden from doing something, they are more tempted to do it. Make your launch only available to only certain people. Only invite certain people to test your product or even better openly proclaim that this product is only for certain kind of people. You can do it by releasing it to only certain niche or by your pricing strategy. Make people curious. Make them want to join your network. If you can do so then your chances of success improves tremendously.

Steve Ballmer knows that to beat Google, he has to make alliances. Steve announced partnership with Blackberry which will make Bing the default search on all Blackberry devices.

Bing’s Blog has this post on the announcement

“Central to this collaboration, , Blackberry devices will use Bing as the preferred search provider in the browser, and Bing will be the default search and map application for new devices presented to mobile operators, both in the United States and internationally. Also, effective today Bing will be the preferred search and maps applications with regular, featured placement and promotion in the BlackBerry App World carousel. ”

Given the popularity of Blackberry devices, Bing can be assured of even more users in coming months. Just some time back, MS also announced a partnership with Nokia in which Bing will available on all Nokia smartphones and tablets. This will be in addition to Windows Phones that will be developed by Nokia.

Both these developments will only mean more adoption of Bing search engine which has already won plaudits from experts and public alike.

Microsoft’s search engine Bing is an underdog and is fighting a tough battle against Google. Microsoft which in past had been at the receiving end of negative publicity has changed it tacks. But it seems that MS is bent on making new friends one at a time to shore up its users.

A smart move considering Google search engine is making enemies as if there is no tomorrow. Google search results are indundated with spam results and despite its overarching powers has failed to punish guilty sites.